Practical tips for small biz owners

About 21 years ago, I set out to make a Vision Board for myself about my perfect business and my perfect life. At the time I was working a corporate 9-5 job, plus running a photography studio in the evenings, and photographing weddings every weekend. My corporate job was safe but a little boring, and working most evenings and weekends left me no time for dating. I had been living in a two-bedroom apartment since college, but longed to have my own home and garden.

I pulled out a stack of magazines and began cutting out images and words that inspired me. Soon I made a Vision Board of my perfect small business, my perfect new home, and wrote a list of What I Want In A Husband, which I added to the Vision Board.

Fast forward six years later: I had bought my own home and created eleven garden beds, which brought me tranquility and a deeper connection to nature and beauty. I had met and married Aly (he laughed when I showed him my Perfect Husband list!). I had started my life coaching business that would eventually morph into a small business coaching enterprise.

Last year I created a new Vision Board for myself (see photos below). Already some of the things on it have come to pass.

What’s a Vision Board?

A Vision Board is a collage of things you want in life, experiences you desire, and people, situations, and feelings you want to manifest. Sometimes it’s called a treasure map.

Making a Vision Board has several purposes:

Helps keep your goals constantly in sight and in your mind

Surrounds you with the energy of what you desire most

Helps you gain clarity about what are your most important goals and dreams

Keeps your emotional energy high and your focus strong

The way to achieve your goals in life is to have a clear picture of what you actually want. Brian Tracy says, ” An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.”

The Law of Attraction says that the more you focus on the things you want, the more time you spend paying attention to your purpose, the more you draw your desired items and experiences into your life. So surrounding yourself with visual representations of what you desire helps to elevate your energy in the direction of those things.

What You’ll Need

Poster Board – I use 20″ x 30″ poster board, because you can find inexpensive frames of that size in any discount department store. A frame will keep the board flat and dust-free, and will allow you to hang it on your wall.

Old magazines – You’ve been wanting to clean up your old magazine pile, so here’s a good excuse! Also, check with friends to see if they have any old magazines, or ask your local library if they ever trash magazines. Choose magazines that have always appealed to you in the past, as they’re a treasure trove of images and words for your Vision Board.

Glue – Don’t use glue sticks as the glue isn’t stable (unless you’re going to frame the Vision Board between a plastic cover and a cardboard backer, which should keep all the items secure). Personally, I use paper cement. There are also double-sided sticky tabs you can buy at most photography stores. These tabs are commonly used for putting together wedding albums, but work great for a Vision Board, too.

Getting Started

While it helps to review your goals and dreams in advance, I find that just diving into the magazines and cutting out any words or images that appeals to me to be the best way to collect ideas.

Don’t judge or critique what you’re cutting out yet. Just cut out any image or word that attracts you, as these are subconscious messages from your brain, heart and soul.

Sort them into piles of themes:

Feelings you’d like to experience

People you’d like to attract into your life

Travel and places to see

Money goals

Lifestyle goals, like health, relationships, etc.

Professional goals, like enhancing your business, becoming famous, or writing a book

Prioritize what must go on your Vision Board. Soften your focus and allow your thoughts, feelings and intuition to guide you to the most important images and words.

Layout without gluing. This helps you to group the items in a pleasing manner and eliminate those items that don’t work for you. Don’t forget that you can write your own words and draw your own sketches for the Vision Board, too.

Glue and frame.

Put it where you’ll see it. Take a moment each day to focus on a portion of the Vision Board that calls to you.

Do you remember in The Secret, John Assaraf talks about creating a vision board that included his perfect home? Six years, and several moves later, he was unpacking an old box and came across his old vision boards — and discovered an amazing thing: the photo of his dream house on one old vision board is the EXACT house he lives in today! (Not a house “like” the house he wanted…the exact same house he was currently living in.) John tells the story in this moving video.

When you create your Vision Board, take photos of it, and post it on your blog or Facebook, so we can all share in the manifesting of your dreams! (Post the link on my Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/KarynGreenstreetFan or use the Comments link below to post your link to this blog.) I can’t wait to see what you create!

22 Responses to “Vision Boards Open Your Mind to Possibilities”

Karyn,
I had a similar experience. One day I thought I would cut out a picture of the cruise ship and stick the little picture on my telephone. This was when I had a J.O.B. I would answer the telephone and look at that ship. About 4 months later my Husband and I got back a substantial check from the old government and decided this was the time to go. We went to the travel agency, looked in all of the books, decided and then booked our trip eventually through the travel agent. It was only after we got back from the trip that I noticed that not only did I get to manifest the cruise but the picture that I had cut out was the EXACT ship (there is only one in this ship line-The Commodore) that we had taken. By the way 2 days ago I printed out a picture of the car that I want a 2010 GMC Terrain and it is loaded right in front of me at my desk here at home of my Life Coaching Business. My my things have changed, LOL.

I have always loved the idea of a vision board, but never created one. How timely that I saw your Tweet Karyn! Tomorrow is the first day of re-establishing my home business after a 2yr+ hiatus (i.e. my youngest starts child care!) I was starting to feel overwhelmed on where to start… I now know exactly what I’m going to do on day one!
Thanks,
Corinna

Hi Karyn,
In Jan of this year I created a vision board for 2010. I cut out the words ‘India Unforgettable’ and pasted it on the board. India is a place I have always wanted to visit. One month later I got an invitation to go to India and went in March. It was amazing! The power of intention!!!
Lisa

Hi Karen,
I am a life coach and employment consultant. I first started using vision boards a couple years ago in a non-traditional career planning workshop. I was working with a group of people who had been out of the workforce for a significant period of time for various reasons. I enjoy using them in that setting because while we are sitting around the big tables cutting people will be nattering and I get the opportunity to affirm them and encourage their dreams. At the end of completing each person stands up and shares as much as they are willing. This provides an opportunity for public speaking and give voice to their dreams. One note of caution here that might not apply to the clients you have…if the person making the dream board is living in a situation where someone will mock of make fun of the dream I suggest that they not hang the poster in a public place. In one case we even took a photo of it and put it on the visor of her car.

I made mine with the original career group. It hangs in my office. I was a fairly new single Mom at the time and had cut out a picture of two women laughing and walking on the beach with a caption “girl talk”. In the last few years I have made some wonderful friends. It may have happened had I not made the dream board but I also know that as I look at it each day I am reminded of the power of having friendships and nurturing these important relationships. Thank you for your great description of vision boards.

A few years ago as a non-profit program director for a women’s center, I brought in a speaker who showed us how to do vision boards. The women served there were often facing a gambit of huge difficult challenges. The whole group that evening had so much fun creating our first one. I’ve created a number of boards for myself since and showed my niece who is now also creating vision boards. As a student of psychology, I even know what’s operating behind the curtain so to speak and it’s still no less magical! I started years ago by writing out my visions, looked back and what I had written had happened. Like John Assaraf it was almost startling how much I had specifically accomplished within a few years. (I later read a great resource by Henriette Anne Klausner’s Write it Down, Make it Happen – “Ah, so that’s why” I said) and the visual option has been great as well. There should be a short course on this in high school or college.

I’ve been meaning to tell you for the longest time that you were a big inspiration for me starting my business and a lot of it also had to do with a vision board example in my office cubicle with print outs I made from your newsletter articles. I remember doing a search and finding your company on the web where I signed up that same day (7/25/05) to receive your newsletters. On the right hand side of those newsletters were inspirational and motivational quotes from different people. I would copy those quotes, enlarge them and paste them all over and I mean all over my cubicle. People would walk in and say holy cow what is going on here. Things like we always knew you were a positive person but you’ve taken this positive stuff to another level and I would just laugh with some of the statements that were made from co-workers. My manager hearing about this walked in and read every single quote. After he was finished he looked at me and smiled and walked right back out. Absolutely no words were exchanged but that smile was worth a thousand words.

I was so driven that I would stay back late researching and doing due diligence on what it would take to start a business. At times doubt would come in, to not take the risk, to just to stay in my comfortable cubicle, to not be bothered with the amount of time and effort it would to take to get it going and to keep it going, etc. But I would start reading those positive quotes and get my mind right back into gear. Nine months later I started the business and I can’t believe it took me 6 years to say THANKS for helping make my dream become a reality. I’ve always had the passion but your passion for business helped my passion and drive become that much greater. While things have been up and down which was expected and as things are looking brighter for the company, there is no better feeling of gratitude and accomplishment knowing that my “self employed” at the time company (we’ve now grown) is providing solutions to help other small businesses succeed.

YOU ROCK !!

If you look in your database you may see my name listed with two different email addresses. I signed up with my gmail in ’05 and for some reason not sure why I did but signed up a few years ago with a different email.

Thanks for the post, I love vision boards and I am always looking for new tricks and tips. Vision boards are very effective business tools, the more people use them the better. It’s a real inspiration 🙂